Ampersand Pastelbord

Because Pastelbord’s unique surface is a hand-applied kaolin clay ground textured with fine marble dust granules, it can hold more pastel layers than any other surface.

Pastelbord is perfect for soft or oil pastels and pastel pencils — colors go on smooth, blend beautifully and stay rich and vibrant in both wet and dry pastel paintings. Or paint on Pastelbord to achieve amazing results with acrylics, oils, watercolors, gouache, charcoal, and more. White Pastelbord panels can easily be hand-tinted using thin washes of gouache or acrylics.

I use these boards every year with my advanced high school students for our pastel portraits. We use them with the General's chalk pastel pencils (another great product!). The quality is great and the boards hold the pastel nicely. One concern is that they can be a bit fragile, especially the corners so if you aren't careful you can knock a corner off. It is always a successful project with my students and they really enjoy working on them!

I love pastel boards and it's the only surface I use right now. Ampersand boards are great buuuut, there will be a quarter of them damaged when purchased. The damage is due to improper storage at either Blick's or Ampersand or shipping by either. The boards cannot be placed label side to label side with weight applied (stacking multiple boards onto one another) because, if so, the labels of one board will make an impression into the clay fixture of the other board and vice versa. When this happens the outside contours of a rectangle label will show up in your work. This is a big problem and I've lost many art works started and I've had to also return many boards back and I'm still surprised this hasn't been corrected somewhere along the manufacturing to delivery pipeline.

I use this surface for pastel painting.It's sturdy and accepts lots of pastel layers. When I do an under painting by applying alcohol to the first layer of pastel, the brilliant colors get even more rich. It's very exciting. The board is more expensive than using sanded paper, but if I'm not happy with the finished piece, I can always wet down the painting and start all over again. The board is extremely durable, so washing it off with a hose doesn't damage the surface at all. And one of the best parts is that it's ready to frame when you're finished. No other backing is needed. You can just pop it into a frame.

When painting in a place that has above average humidity, this is the surface I use. The rigid base assures potential art buyers that the work won't warp over time. It doesn't hold as much pastel as some of the sanded papers.

Pastelbord is an excellent surface not only for pastels, but for acrylics as well. This archival clay-coated panel has a marble dust finish providing the perfect toothy surface for multiple layers of pastel application. See why using Pastelbord gives you an advantage when working with pastels — or even aqueous media.

Ampersand manufactures a wide variety of archival artist panels. There is a surface for every artist, every medium and every technique. Watch this video to learn which of these boards is right for you!